Jan 4 1988
From The Space Library
NASA released a proposal to select a prime contractor for a long-duration, human-tended scientific satellite called the Advanced X-Ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF). The third of NASA's four proposed orbiting "great observatories", AXAF would study high-energy emissions associated with quasars, spinning neutron stars, and black holes, providing valuable information about these phenomena and serving as an important new tool for basic research in plasma physics. AXAF would also provide data on the various forms of "dark matter" in the universe, which may help determine whether the universe is an open or closed loop. AXAF could be scheduled for launch as early as 1995. The orbiting observatory would be 14 feet in diameter, 45 feet long, and would weigh 12-15 tons. It would be placed into a circular orbit 320 miles above the Earth, and would operate for about 15 years. Maintenance of AXAF would be accomplished by crews of either the Space Shuttle or the U.S. Space Station. (NASA Release 88-1)
Engineers at Morton Thiokol's Wasatch facility an Utah concluded that a design flaw had led to the failure of a previously untested Space Shuttle booster part during a full-scale test firing December 23. NASA officials delayed the flight schedule after they discovered that a portion of the booster's nozzle assembly, which guides the vehicle, had fallen apart during testing, a month earlier.
Engineers finished taking the booster motor apart and recovered all six missing pieces of the failed nozzle part. Known as the outer boot ring, the failed part anchored the booster's nozzle to a flexible rubbery "boot" that allowed the nozzle to swivel. One purpose of the boot ring was to shield the metal and rubber bearing at the core of the swivel mechanism from the intense heat of the rocket gases. During the test firing, the booster's nozzle was deliberately moved to the maximum seven degrees-some three degrees beyond what would be required during a normal Shuttle flight. NASA was looking into the possibility that the extreme steering might have caused the boot ring to come apart or delaminate.
A group of officials at the Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, developers of the original design test requirements for an extreme swiveling of the nozzle, studied whether the maneuver should be repeated in future tests of whatever design is adopted, or whether a less severe maneuver would be an adequate test under the more stringent, post-Challenger standards. The test failure would probably force a delay of 6 to 10 weeks in the resumption of Space Shuttle flights, delaying the STS-26 flight of Discovery to no earlier than August 1988. (NASA Release 87-190; UPI, Jan 4/88; W Post, Jan 5/88; NY Times, Jan 6/88)
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